


put me to sleep

by palalavras



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ASMR, Insomnia, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Sleeping Together, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 19:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13130526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palalavras/pseuds/palalavras
Summary: It’s the middle of space, the end of the galaxy. And still. There are these things they don’t say.But maybe tonight he can whisper an echo into the small universe between them.





	put me to sleep

It’s another cold night, cold and empty like the space that surrounds them. On nights like these, dark even in the darkness of infinity, Lance finds himself here. Camped out in Keith’s bed. Maybe it started with their friendship. One easy night where Lance came to Keith’s room to hang out, each working on a project in comfortable silence. He’s not sure how they ended up here, comfortable enough to fall asleep in the same bed without hitting each other or shouting “No homo!”, but not so comfortable to acknowledge that sleeping shirtless in the same bed isn’t something that teammates do. Well. Trying to sleep. The rings around his teammate’s eyes nearly circle all the way, like a raccoon. Keith doesn’t talk about it so neither does he. Even in the empty oppression of space, the words float far away, as far as a star. Or even Earth.  
  
“Keith, scoot over,” Lance had groaned to himself before his eyes had flown open in silent surprise at the suppressed shiver beside him. In the adjusting darkness, he had seen a field of goosebumps erupt over Keith’s naked skin.  
  
He hadn’t been asleep. He hadn’t been asleep for the entire time that Lance had been whispering quiet prayers, regrets, condolences in Spanish to his far away family.  
  
He whispers, “Keith,” to the expanse of warm back in short warning before leaning over him to blindly reach for his watch in the dark. He knows he doesn’t need to see the time. He knows Keith knows he doesn’t need to see the time. But he has to confirm, he has to see. What this is.  
  
“Whoa,” he breathes into the space between them, paused in his reach over Keith’s shoulder, where Keith’s eyes have opened to reveal glassy blown pupils.  
  
He didn’t know. Well he had some idea, it’s not a completely new concept. Keith would slap his hand away when Lance went to ruffle his hair, would watch Shiro’s hands so carefully when he did repairs. But now Lance knows. In the long list of his inabilities, his failures, he knows he can do this one thing for Keith.  
  
He settles behind Keith again. Closer than before, almost spooning. But not touching. Never really touching. Keith stays on his side, facing away from him. That’s okay. He can read Keith, like a phantom limb that still throbs when it rains.  
  
Lance licks his lips, a pause before he starts… this. One breath, held in, as he gently buries his nose and releases it as a soft sigh into the silky hairs at the back of Keith’s head. They tickle his nose. When he was a kid, not so much younger than he is now but somehow eons and eons ago, he would bury his face into his sister’s hair and she would squeal in delight. What does it mean to know how someone smells? Not perfume or shampoo but the real, human smell of family.  
  
Keith holds back a shiver. In another universe maybe, Lance would throw his arm around his middle, cuddle into his back, bury a smile into his neck as Keith would swat playfully at him.  
  
But that isn’t this life.  
  
Instead he runs the nails of his free hand up and down the sheet, so close to the line of Keith’s back. It makes a gentle scratching sound and he can feel the heat radiating from the exposed back that dips into the mattress.  
  
Lance starts to whisper again into Keith’s hairline. About his family, his life then, his life now. What he dreams about, what he wishes for. “ _Si sepas…._ ” Even in a language Keith doesn’t understand, there are these things that Lance cannot say.  
  
But maybe Keith has some idea; he has stopped trying to hide full body shudders.  
  
So lightly, so carefully, like a touch that’s not even there, Lance draws a line from Keith’s nape to the triangle of muscle in his lower back. It twitches when Lance scratches lightly there. He draws the same path, over and over, until Keith relaxes again. When his fingertips start to go numb and he can no longer feel the warm, smooth skin under his touch, he moves to pet Keith’s hair.  
  
Lance buries his fingers in Keith’s hair and Keith sighs like the wind going out of a sail, his body deflating. He sighs so gently, like he forgot he was pretending. Lance scratches at his scalp and wants so badly for something else. There is a small black hole of aching in his chest that sucks the warmth from his toes.  
  
Keith’s frame relaxes into the bed, unaware. When Lance whispers “Keith” a final time, there’s no response. He is, miraculously, asleep. Lance’s hand is warm where it’s resting in the dark strands. Slowly he pulls it out, letting the strands slip through his fingers and gently patting them back into place. He rolls over onto his back and stares at the ceiling and can still feel the warmth from the body beside him.  
  
Lance lies awake in dark, watching the gentle rise and fall of Keith’s uncovered rib cage. He wonders why he feels relieved, but also somehow lonelier than before.

Somewhere in the shadowland between awake and asleep, he thinks it would be nice to have a pet, something to come home to. And deeper, an unwanted whisper says maybe, maybe he could be your home if he only let you. _But he won't. He won't._ Then the warm blanket of sleep covers him and he dreams of nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> From Wikipedia:  
> ASMR signifies the subjective experience of "low-grade euphoria" characterised by "a combination of positive feelings and a distinct static-like tingling sensation on the skin". It is most commonly triggered by specific acoustic, visual and digital media stimuli, and less commonly by intentional attentional control.


End file.
